Facebook is Like...

Human beings are capable of anything.

I mean anything! If you don’t believe me, just go and see the new Facebook advert. If you had come to me a week ago and said that a multigazillion dollar brand that doesn’t even need to advertise, would do it anyway, and that too with a combination of calling itself a chair, saying a lot of words that sound like sentences but don’t actually mean much, and putting together a string of video-clips that could make hallmark cards look as profound and stimulating as the works of Dostoevsky, I would’ve laughed at your naivety. “Don’t be ridiculous!” I would’ve said, “Surely a company that’s basically creeped into a billion people’s heads and made ‘Like’ and ‘Share’ shaped dents in their brains wouldn’t be stupid enough to do such a thing?? And who would even buy this crap?”

Well, like I said, human beings are capable of anything.

Are we really to believe in all honesty that Facebook is like a chair? You cannot be serious. What’s that, Barack Obama? Yes, you can? Yeah, you know what? You are right. Whatever happened to imagination, eh? Of course Facebook is a chair! And a doorbell! And if you squint and tilt your head to the left, it’s a bit like a toothbrush. One small problem though; that’s not ALL that it is. My chair doesn’t, for example, have impenetrable privacy settings. If I put my chair on my phone, it wouldn’t insist on being ‘updated’ every twenty minutes! If I gave my personal details to my doorbell, it wouldn’t sell them to the next person that walks in with a ton of cash. No, no, Facebook is so much more!

So, continuing with the spirit of second-rate but inspired drivel, I present to you, my own comprehensive and even-handed list of things that ‘define’ Facebook-

Facebook... is like snot. It’s icky, and distracting when you are trying to work. Facebook is like crystal meth, in that it’s hard to tell just how much is too much. Facebook is like a wet towel. It is disgusting, but sometimes you HAVE to use it, because no one planned ahead, and everyone’s been using it and now it’s all you’ve got.

Imagine walking into a room wearing your best outfit, but also with a piece of gum stuck in your hair. People can’t take their eyes off you, can hardly talk about anything else. You seem to be the centre of everything, if only because your pitiful attempts at trying to appear charming are helping everyone else feel that much saner and healthier. Facebook is that piece of gum.

Facebook is like dog poo. Once you are in it, it’s too late. You know that box of leftovers in the fridge that you try not to think much about for a long time, and then it gets scary, because it starts growing new stuff? Facebook is that box. Facebook is like a padded bra. Sure, it gives you a renewed sense of self, but it’s not fooling anyone. Facebook is like a dead rat on the road that’s been run over by a hundred different cars. Every time you come back and look at it, it appears a tiny bit different, and a tiny bit worse.

Yes, Facebook is like a chair. But it’s also like a table. You could bang your head on it all day, but the table is not the one that is going to get hurt.